The case against nuclear power - does it stack up?

[A380]

My understanding of biomass is that it’s absolutely fucking appalling because it’s not just carbon it emits but (iirc) methane which isn’t measured so much but is absolutely even worse for warming than carbon.

I see nuclear as the choice between a fairly horrible and lingering energy source that’s at least visible and measurable whereas coal and gas so far is something that is fire and carbon but far easier to ignore. So these days I’m moderately ok with nuclear. It’s not ideal but so little is.

Not in favour of building it somewhere like Japan (Fukushima seems to be the latest disaster to kill nuclear) mind because Jesus don’t fuck around in a tectonically active zone guys.

No problem building nukes in Japan...

 

[maomao]

The Daily Mail is now parroting Bi0boy:

MOS COMMENT: Forget petrol - it's a nuclear strategy that we need

MOS COMMENT: There is a lot of politics going on here, with diehard Remainers anxious to pin the blame for the HGV driver shortage on Brexit.

www.dailymail.co.uk

MORE dead kids so MAIL readers can have ELECTRIC SUVs

 

[A380]

This is a good starting point: Radiation and Reason. The link will take you to a free PDF and links as to where you can buy a physical copy. A good introduction to the topic for non-specialists. Has a central argument that, yes radioactivity is very dangerous, but nothing like the world destroying risks it has been painted as and that a lot of the exaggeration of the risk was beneficial to both the USA and USSR for different reasons during the cold war. An easy read.

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www.radiationandreason.com

 

[maomao]

This is a good starting point: Radiation and Reason. The link will take you to a free PDF and links as to where you can buy a physical copy. A good introduction to the topic for non-specialists. Has a central argument that, yes radioactivity is very dangerous, but nothing like the world destroying risks it has been painted as and that a lot of the exaggeration of the risk was beneficial to both the USA and USSR for different reasons during the cold war. An easy read.

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www.radiationandreason.com

I read a couple of the articles (not the long pdfs) and it was all 'no deaths at three mile island', 'what about bhopal' yada yada yada by some fella who owns a company called 'supporters of nuclear energy ltd.' I'm not going to read any more unless you want to quote a specific article.

 

[yield]

BBC World Service - Newsday, Fukushima water release is 'unknown territory'

Japan plans to release a million tonnes of contaminated water from nuclear plant into sea

www.bbc.co.uk

Too many nuclear power stations are coastal. It's short sighted. Creating another problem for future generations.

How the U.S. betrayed the Marshall Islands, kindling the next nuclear disaster

And like maomao said how many children's lives is it worth? Reminds me of https://libcom.org/files/ursula-k-le-guin-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas.pdf

Many of those DM readers would become instant nimbys if their neighbourhood was near a proposed site.

 

[A380]

I read a couple of the articles (not the long pdfs) and it was all 'no deaths at three mile island', 'what about bhopal' yada yada yada by some fella who owns a company called 'supporters of nuclear energy ltd.' I'm not going to read any more unless you want to quote a specific article.

The book, read the book. Don't let me spoon feed you knowledge. And no one died at Three Mile island. That's not particularly controversial.

 

[maomao]

The book, read the book. Don't let me spoon feed you knowledge.

It's hardly spoon-feeding to ask for an actual argument. You've presented a source and I've said he looks like a crank and a paid shill. Your whole argument can't be 'this fella says it's fine'.


In particular I'd like to know what happens to the waste. I've heard there are still barrels lying about from the 1940s that haven't been processed. Is the plan still to pay poor countries to have it? How's that going?

 

[A380]

It's hardly spoon-feeding to ask for an actual argument. You've presented a source and I've said he looks like a crank and a paid shill. Your whole argument can't be 'this fella says it's fine'.


In particular I'd like to know what happens to the waste. I've heard there are still barrels lying about from the 1940s that haven't been processed. Is the plan still to pay poor countries to have it? How's that going?

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the industry knows there is no solution to high level waste and not much of one for mid level- See my first post on this thread. I wasn't aware there has been any serious proposal to export waste to third world since the 1980s, as neither they not producing companies are that stupid. Happy to see any source material that you have to show it has been occurring post then?

Frankly if you are so unmotivated as to be able to do your own reading and research when people provide with some links you give the impression of not caring about this issue; or deliberately seeking an internet spat, something which seems to be one of your prime uses of Urban. Which is fair enough.

 

[maomao]

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the industry knows there is no solution to high level waste and not much of one for mid level- See my first post on this thread. I wasn't aware there has been any serious proposal to export waste to third world since the 1980s, as neither they not producing companies are that stupid. Happy to see any source material that you have to show it has been occurring post then?

Frankly if you are so unmotivated as to be able to do your own reading and research when people provide with some links you give the impression of not caring about this issue; or deliberately seeking an internet spat, something which seems to be one of your prime uses of Urban. Which is fair enough.

I did have a little read, understand his position, and didn't see anything new beyond the stuff you get in the broadsheets about how it's all safe now, including the obligatory 'Bhopal was much worse' reference. In addition, the author is clearly a paid propagandist for the nuclear industry. I'd rather not read it but gave you the chance to point out any particular killer arguments. You can't just wave any old shite at people and insist they read it or they don't understand.

I'm obviously not an industry expert but was involved with anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigns since a very early age and have a personal interest in childhood cancers. I think that gives me a right to question the pro-nuclear positions here. I'd much rather have an argument than a fight but I can't see that you've presented one yet.

 

[A380]

I did have a little read, understand his position, and didn't see anything new beyond the stuff you get in the broadsheets about how it's all safe now, including the obligatory 'Bhopal was much worse' reference. In addition, the author is clearly a paid propagandist for the nuclear industry. I'd rather not read it but gave you the chance to point out any particular killer arguments. You can't just wave any old shite at people and insist they read it or they don't understand.

I'm obviously not an industry expert but was involved with anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigns since a very early age and have a personal interest in childhood cancers. I think that gives me a right to question the pro-nuclear positions here. I'd much rather have an argument than a fight but I can't see that you've presented one yet.

No one says you don’t? But you cherry pick one article from a link I posted how to get a very useful and accessible book which would inform you. Not those links.

Nuke power and weapons were intertwined from the start. Again see my original post. Nuclear Weapons provide an existential threat to human civilisation. Nuclear power doesn’t. It is dangerous in a similar way to the chemical industry and has killed far less.

We don’t need civil nukes for weapons now as we and our allies have more Pu for the physics packages than we will ever need.

For the UK civil nukes and wind can get us to and beyond our Paris agreements for electricity until we have a solution for both heat and storage.

By the way lots of us played active roles in the peace movement. It doesn't give us the right to anything on here…

 

[Riklet]

That graph is shocking tbh. 2021 and we are still reliant on natural gas for 50% of electricity production. 0% hydro and biomass could be way higher. As could solar power tbh. I think they've put too much emphasis on wind power and not enough on using the sea we have a pleanty of...

I'm all in favour of more nuclear, at least temporarily- the 9% of electricity imported is inevitably made from nuclear power in France or burning gas in Norway. Idk about the Netherlands. Personally I think we should be exporting power not importing it! Germany is a good example of why we should not just be listening to the environmental lobby - they are back to burning more fossil fuels than before!

Another key key aim IMO should be reducing our fuel and energy usage and making the whole country more efficient. I can but dream...

 

[A380]

That graph is shocking tbh. 2021 and we are still reliant on natural gas for 50% of electricity production. 0% hydro and biomass could be way higher. As could solar power tbh. I think they've put too much emphasis on wind power and not enough on using the sea we have a pleanty of...

I'm all in favour of more nuclear, at least temporarily- the 9% of electricity imported is inevitably made from nuclear power in France or burning gas in Norway. Idk about the Netherlands. Personally I think we should be exporting power not importing it! Germany is a good example of why we should not just be listening to the environmental lobby - they are back to burning more fossil fuels than before!

Another key key aim IMO should be reducing our fuel and energy usage and making the whole country more efficient. I can but dream...

We could always do with more Hydro. There is already 'too much' solar PV on the system already more could be almost impossible to balance till storage turns up. Bio is a bit of a scam now, Drax is big and already burning Canadian trees cut down specifically for it.

Yes, Germany is the last possible developed nation we should look too. They shut their nukes then filled the gaps by building lignite (brown shit coal thats really carbon heavy for MWh) power stations in Poland. These are owned and funded by Germany and export all capacity to Germany but their emissions show against Poland. It is probably the single most cynical action in the energy world for the last 20 years,

Spot on for the last paragraph though.

 

[A380]

I have posted this before on other threads but this shows real time usage and generation for the big sources and pretty accurate estimates for smaller generation types. It shows both GB and France.

G. B. National Grid status

www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

 

[maomao]

Nuclear Weapons provide an existential threat to human civilisation. Nuclear power doesn’t. It is dangerous in a similar way to the chemical industry anf has killed far less.

This is his main strawman, that anti-nuclear opinion are all the result of being convinced that nuclear is more dangerous than it is. I don't object to nuclear power because it's an existential threat to humanity or because I think it's as big a danger as nuclear war; I object because it's dirty, it harms people, it poisons land and it poses long term waste problems that haven't been answered properly in three quarters of a century. I'm not some feeble-minded fool brainwashed by cold war propaganda.

I also don't believe the carbon cost quoted by the industry. There is a lot of money invested in persuading people that it's clean but all the figures quoted are based on very optimistic LCAs. It doesn't seem to be nearly as close to carbon neutral as is widely claimed.

False solution: Nuclear power is not 'low carbon'

Claims that nuclear power is a 'low carbon' energy source fall apart under scrutiny, writes Keith Barnham. Far from coming in at six grams of CO2 per unit of electricity for Hinkley C, as the Climate Change Committee believes, the true figure is probably well above 50 grams - breaching the CCC's...

theecologist.org

Overall it feels like politicians ramming dirty 1950s and 60s technology down our throats as a poor substitute for genuinely dealing with our problems and addressing overproduction and overconsumption.

 

[A380]

This is his main strawman, that anti-nuclear opinion are all the result of being convinced that nuclear is more dangerous than it is. I don't object to nuclear power because it's an existential threat to humanity or because I think it's as big a danger as nuclear war; I object because it's dirty, it harms people, it poisons land and it poses long term waste problems that haven't been answered properly in three quarters of a century. I'm not some feeble-minded fool brainwashed by cold war propaganda.

I also don't believe the carbon cost quoted by the industry. There is a lot of money invested in persuading people that it's clean but all the figures quoted are based on very optimistic LCAs. It doesn't seem to be nearly as close to carbon neutral as is widely claimed.

False solution: Nuclear power is not 'low carbon'

Claims that nuclear power is a 'low carbon' energy source fall apart under scrutiny, writes Keith Barnham. Far from coming in at six grams of CO2 per unit of electricity for Hinkley C, as the Climate Change Committee believes, the true figure is probably well above 50 grams - breaching the CCC's...

theecologist.org

Overall it feels like politicians ramming dirty 1950s and 60s technology down our throats as a poor substitute for genuinely dealing with our problems and addressing overproduction and overconsumption.

I'm not sure the politicians do want it, They know we need new nuclear plants but have been dodging the issue for at least the last 15 years.

How you going to do it then? Before the Star Trek technology turns up?

 

[maomao]

How you going to do it then? Before the Star Trek technology turns up?

I'm not convinced nuclear is necessary with current renewable technology. More pumped storage, more wind, more tidal, and reduce consumption. The 'we need nuclear' option is based on everything else staying the same.

 

[elbows]

Accurately ascertaining the health implications is a big quagmire full of hard to pin down detail and propaganda on all sides.

For that reason, I usually prefer to focus on stuff that is less easily quibbled about, such as evacuations and no-go zones when fuel melts. And I think about those sorts of risks in the following way: The chances of that sort of accident are very small, but the consequences on the rare occasions that such accidents happen are very large.

 

[yield]

There's been an increase in low-probability, high-impact weather events.

The nuclear industry like the fossil fuel companies ignore the externalities.

 

[co-op]

If Ed Millband's ten nuclear power stations had been built, the amount of gas and coal we'd need to burn during periods of low wind and solar would be much reduced. Today for example we're burning 15GW worth of gas. With 20GW available nuclear capacity instead of 5, that would be zero.

No this just isn't true; the one plant that's really under way now - the EPR at Hinckley C was one of Ed Milliband's plants. It's nowhere near ready and everyone knows it won't be for years. The EPR being built at Olkiliuoto in Finland was supposed to be generating electricity to help Finland meet its obligations under the Kyoto deal which expired in 2010 - 11 years ago. It's still not generating anything. The EPR at Flammanville is years behind schedule. This is a story that is repeated time and again with nuclear power plants - if they weren't so utterly shit at actually delivering you can bet there'd be an awful lot more of them. But despite all the promises of the industry they are reliably disappointing in reality. We have - at best - a decade really to turn around the carbon problem, we literally don't have the time to fart around on another lot of will-they, won't-they nuclear plants. Even if they work they'll come on stream too late.

Probably the greenest thing about them is that the electricity they produce is so expensive that nuclear-generated energy helps to drive investment in reducing usage.

But yes, horrendous waste of money. Had the vast sums spent on buying licences and developing sites etc been invested straight into renewables that could have been operational in months, we'd have been generating significant amounts of totally renewable energy for the last 15 years instead of relying on fossil fuels.

 

[krtek a houby]

My understanding of biomass is that it’s absolutely fucking appalling because it’s not just carbon it emits but (iirc) methane which isn’t measured so much but is absolutely even worse for warming than carbon.

I see nuclear as the choice between a fairly horrible and lingering energy source that’s at least visible and measurable whereas coal and gas so far is something that is fire and carbon but far easier to ignore. So these days I’m moderately ok with nuclear. It’s not ideal but so little is.

Not in favour of building it somewhere like Japan (Fukushima seems to be the latest disaster to kill nuclear) mind because Jesus don’t fuck around in a tectonically active zone guys.

They fucking love their nuclear here (the govt and those in the industry, that is).

They keep telling us how safe it is, even going to pour waste in the ocean, because it'll be fine...

 

[elbows]

But yes, horrendous waste of money. Had the vast sums spent on buying licences and developing sites etc been invested straight into renewables that could have been operational in months, we'd have been generating significant amounts of totally renewable energy for the last 15 years instead of relying on fossil fuels.

I'd say that we are generating significant amounts of electricity from renewable sources as a result of much progress over the last 10+ years. There is a long way to go, and some of that will come from further demand reduction rather than on the supply side, but progress has still been more impressive than I'd have dared to hope. People might have thought I was a nut if I'd been able to come out with these sorts of numbers 20 years ago.

The investment and progress with renewables also shifting the economic arguments because even if tricks are used to make nuclear appear cheaper than it really is, as of a few years ago UK renewables managed to become cheaper on paper than nuclear.

Wind has proven it can scale up, catch on big time, and be competitive in terms of costs. Issues of storage and dealing with periods lacking in wind remain as fairly major challenges, and I'd rather we directed funds there rather than on nuclear investment. But I also think demand reduction will be a bigger part of the picture than currently tends to be acknowledged, and that will be a messy picture that has implications politicians etc arent being completely open about yet. The longer they leave a hole where new nuclear was originally supposed to be, the more I think we can expect a rude awakening on that front at some point.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...data/file/1016822/UK_Energy_in_Brief_2021.pdf

If that graph is accurate then I'd be inlined to reject the common narrative that we've used gas to replace coal for electricity generation. Gas replacing coal has got more truth to it if we go back far enough, but in terms of the last 10-15 years I'd say gas has carried on as before and that its renewables and some demand reduction thats replaced coal. With imports/other used to fill in much of the gap caused by dwindling nuclear capacity.

 

[platinumsage]

No this just isn't true; the one plant that's really under way now - the EPR at Hinckley C was one of Ed Milliband's plants. It's nowhere near ready and everyone knows it won't be for years. The EPR being built at Olkiliuoto in Finland was supposed to be generating electricity to help Finland meet its obligations under the Kyoto deal which expired in 2010 - 11 years ago. It's still not generating anything. The EPR at Flammanville is years behind schedule. This is a story that is repeated time and again with nuclear power plants - if they weren't so utterly shit at actually delivering you can bet there'd be an awful lot more of them. But despite all the promises of the industry they are reliably disappointing in reality. We have - at best - a decade really to turn around the carbon problem, we literally don't have the time to fart around on another lot of will-they, won't-they nuclear plants. Even if they work they'll come on stream too late.

Probably the greenest thing about them is that the electricity they produce is so expensive that nuclear-generated energy helps to drive investment in reducing usage.

But yes, horrendous waste of money. Had the vast sums spent on buying licences and developing sites etc been invested straight into renewables that could have been operational in months, we'd have been generating significant amounts of totally renewable energy for the last 15 years instead of relying on fossil fuels.

I said "if they had been built". It has been perfectly possible to build them in the intervening period since 2009, Hinkley was delayed by years due to planning and contract negotiations.

Massive renewable capacity has been added in 15 years, adding a lot more wouldn't really have stopped us relying on gas to plug the gaps. However, with more nuclear it would have meant the gaps would have been smaller e.g. we're burning gas for 30% of our electricity right now, France is 7%.

Sizewell's strike price is likely to be in the range £30-60 per MWh, way cheaper than the current grid price of £150 per MWh, which is so high due to the need to burn gas to compensate for the deficiencies of renewables.

 

[elbows]

I said "if they had been built". It has been perfectly possible to build them in the intervening period since 2009, Hinkley was delayed by years due to planning and contract negotiations.

Massive renewable capacity has been added in 15 years, adding a lot more wouldn't really have stopped us relying on gas to plug the gaps. However, with more nuclear it would have meant the gaps would have been smaller e.g. we're burning gas for 30% of our electricity right now, France is 7%.

Sizewell's strike price is likely to be in the range £30-60 per MWh, way cheaper than the current grid price of £150 per MWh, which is so high due to the need to burn gas to compensate for the deficiencies of renewables.

Your confidence about achievable price and timescales for new nuclear builds is curious to me. I dont think experts tend to have that level of confidence about it at all. There are plenty of risks in this area, and a lot of history that gives no cause for confidence.

The only reason I cannot currently claim with high confidence that we will be able to cope without nuclear being part of the mix at all, without having to keep a big chunk of fossil fuel generation capacity, is that I am not clued up as to how much storage capacity it is credible to expect we can deliver within comparable timescales. If renewable-generated electricity can be stored at mass scale, then remaining arguments in favour of nuclear go right down the toilet. And on a cost basis, nuclear is already in very bad trouble. I dont reject it in full just yet because I feel the need for us to hedge our bets a little, but I dont think we are far off having other proven solutions that are a much better alternative hedge.

 

[A380]

Your confidence about achievable price and timescales for new nuclear builds is curious to me. I dont think experts tend to have that level of confidence about it at all. There are plenty of risks in this area, and a lot of history that gives no cause for confidence.

The only reason I cannot currently claim with high confidence that we will be able to cope without nuclear being part of the mix at all, without having to keep a big chunk of fossil fuel generation capacity, is that I am not clued up as to how much storage capacity it is credible to expect we can deliver within comparable timescales. If renewable-generated electricity can be stored at mass scale, then remaining arguments in favour of nuclear go right down the toilet. And on a cost basis, nuclear is already in very bad trouble. I dont reject it in full just yet because I feel the need for us to hedge our bets a little, but I dont think we are far off having other proven solutions that are a much better alternative hedge.

Nuclear is expensive, it’s even more expensive than it needs to be because of delays and general fucking about with finance models to keep it offf the books. No private company can afford the risk on the balance sheet- Half the EDF board resigned over The last UK nuke. Also people like to fuck about with the designs. Three off the shelf with HMG funding wouldn’t be a ridiculous price over their lifetime- although we still don’t have a high level waste solution.


And we need lots more DSR. Currently the markets are massively over complicated to let DSR in and it still very rarely wins. We could do with a completely separate DSR mechanism to promote reduction. And cut the hands off anyone who gets DSR contracts for behind the meter generation…

 

[co-op]

I said "if they had been built". It has been perfectly possible to build them in the intervening period since 2009, Hinkley was delayed by years due to planning and contract negotiations.

Olkiliuoto 3 (an EPR, the exact same design as Hinckley C) was begun in 2005 and is still not operating. It was meant to be finished in 2009 and delivering electricity to allow Finnish compliance to Kyoto by the end of 2010 when Kyoto expired. The exact same process is being repeated at Flammanville in France, also with an EPR, begun in 2007, scheduled to start operating in 2012, still non-operational now, 9 years later.

Why would Hinckley magically avoid the same fate?

Vincent de Rivaz who was responsible for EDF (the supposed operator of Hinckley) said we would all be cooking our Christmas dinners using electricity from Hinckley in Christmas 2017. No one I know thinks it'll be finished this decade.

This entire industry is so full of bullshit, always promising the world (remember "energy too cheap to meter"?, that's one for us oldies) and delivering little or very often nothing, but always, reliably soaking up vast quantities of capital and time. I really cannot think of any other industry outside of defence that gets away with this level of BS, maybe reflecting nuclear's roots in the defence industry.

 

[co-op]

Nuclear is expensive, it’s even more expensive than it needs to be because of delays and general fucking about with finance models to keep it offf the books.

Let's not forget the massive, massive legal actions that take place as the various operators and contractors sue each other over its failure to deliver. The only people who really do well out of nuclear are big construction companies and contract lawyers.

 

[elbows]

This entire industry is so full of bullshit, always promising the world (remember "energy too cheap to meter"?, that's one for us oldies) and delivering little or very often nothing, but always, reliably soaking up vast quantities of capital and time. I really cannot think of any other industry outside of defence that gets away with this level of BS, maybe reflecting nuclear's roots in the defence industry.

On the bullshit front, one of the awkward things I noticed with Fukushima involved regulatory body conflicts on interest. The IAEA had to criticise the fact that the same body that was responsible for regulation in Japan was also responsible for promoting nuclear power. I considered this to be an awkward conclusion for the IAEA because as best I could tell the IAEA has exactly the same conflict of interests, since they have a role in both safety and promotion.

Atoms for peace was propaganda.

 

[A380]

Trouble is we need to cut carbon. If it wasn’tt for that we could happily churn out CCGTs. There’s enough gas under Kuwait alone to keep the world going for about 60 years- if we built more LNG tankers- but we CAN’T BURN IT ALL BECAUSE WE WILL DIE IF WE DO.

 

[co-op]

On the bullshit front, one of the awkward things I noticed with Fukushima involved regulatory body conflicts on interest. The IAEA had to criticise the fact that the same body that was responsible for regulation in Japan was also responsible for promoting nuclear power. I considered this to be an awkward conclusion for the IAEA because as best I could tell the IAEA has exactly the same conflict of interests, since they have a role in both safety and promotion.

Atoms for peace was propaganda.

It's a genuine problem within the entire industry, because the skills and the knowledge base are so specialised it's inevitably a very small pool of people who actually really know what's what. A lot of this has also been linked to the need for secrecy because of nuclear's military potential of course - I've almost never met a nuclear scientist/administrator/bureaucrat who wasn't a white middle-aged university-educated man, it's like an old-fashioned Victorian club, they all know each other, were all educated at the same places etc.

 

[co-op]

Trouble is we need to cut carbon. If it wasn’tt for that we could happily churn out CCGTs. There’s enough gas under Kuwait alone to keep the world going for about 60 years- if we built more LNG tankers- but we CAN’T BURN IT ALL BECAUSE WE WILL DIE IF WE DO.

I know, hence the attraction of the Magic Grand Projet that will solve everything at a stroke using Technology. I'd love nuclear to be that thing, but it isn't. Pity.